After the heavy conversations of the morning, the party split up for the afternoon. Knowing that the mayor and guard captain were going to help them was a relief to Arden, but he was still feeling the stress of leading and protecting his family. Because of this he spent a few hours at the shrine in prayer and meditation.
Once he felt he had a good handle on his stress and emotions, Arden went looking for the sergeant in charge of training the guard to discuss a training regiment for his party. After spending far longer than he would have liked trying to convince the sergeant that he wasn’t trying to make everyone an expert spearman or swordsman but rather just wanted his group trained in the basics of any weapons available. Arden finally acquiesced to having each person train to a skill level of five in spears first. Then they would be trained to a skill level of one in every weapon the guard had and to skill level ten in a single weapon of their choosing. Arden agreed that they would do the same exercises as the guards as well, which seemed to please the sergeant. As he was about to leave the sergeant grumbled about having to spend the next ten months teaching them. Arden laughed at this and stated that his group could finish all this training in less than five months. When the guard scoffed, Arden offered a wager that was quickly accepted.
That evening at dinner the party talked about how they had spent their afternoons. It seemed Hazel and Ewan walked around looking for any shops that were still open. They found a seamstress named Caitlin and were able to buy some new clothes. And they came across Sidi, a jeweler who evidently liked to talk. Hazel hadn’t bought anything from Sidi but had stayed and visited with her for a few hours.
Willow and Arlo also wandered the town just looking around. They found what Willow thought was a public park with dozens of different types of flowers growing in it. Curious about them she started using her [Identification] and [Herbal Lore] skills on them trying to learn what she could, but her skill was too low for most of the flowers, even though she leveled them both in the process. A passerby let her know that the garden had been planted by an alchemist named Oscar. Not wanting to upset anyone, Willow left the plants alone and she and Arlo went east, crossed the river and out into the forest where they spent the afternoon playing.
Nolan had asked Jacob for directions to the blacksmith’s forge. He went and introduced himself to the blacksmith, Nicolaus, and explained that he had some experience in knife making but wanted to learn more while he was in town. Evidently the smith was in need of some help because after only asking a few few questions he put Nolan to work making nails all afternoon.
Arden shared with the group his meeting with the training sergeant and mentioned how the man was a bit of a jerk still. Hazel asked what the sergeant’s name was and Arden realized he had no idea. And not a simple case of he forgot but rather that he had never even asked. Nolan was quick to point out that could be why the man was rude. Arden conceded and agreed to make it right the following morning before their first training session. He went on to tell them how the sergeant insisted on everyone getting trained with a spear first.
“Makes sense,” Nolan replied. “Spears are the easiest weapon to use well. It doesn’t take near as much training as a sword or mace to become useful. Since all of you have quarterstaves, much of it will transfer over as well.”
“I hadn’t thought about that, but it’s a good point. So, training in spears until everyone is at level five. Then training in every weapon they have in their armory until we have the first level in each one. Then we each get to pick a weapon and they’ll train us until we reach level ten in it. Oh, and we need to do it in less than five months.”
“Why do we need to do it so quickly?” Willow asked.
“He was grumbling that it would take ten months to train us like this and that the goblins would probably have wiped out the town by then. By this point I was frustrated so I told him we could do it in half that time. And we made a wager on it.”
“Of course you did,” Nolan replied while shaking his head. “But you’re probably right. With the boons we have and the previous experience, it really shouldn’t take us very long.”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Of course I’m right,” Arden said before sticking out his tongue.
“Did you account for the fact that the months here are shorter so it’s closer to four months than five?” asked Willow with a smirk.
Arden just looked at his youngest daughter for a moment before speaking, “You know, it’s times like this I wish your oldest sister was here. She wouldn’t be mean to me like you.”
At this both daughters started laughing before Willow replied, “She’d probably join the goblins just to spite you.”
“You’re probably right,” Arden sighed. “But back on topic, the plan as I see it is we get up and go work out in the mornings. Afternoons we’re free do as we please unless something comes up, though I’d recommend a nap. Then after dinner I’d like to start going hunting. We’ve thinned out the goblins in this area, I want to keep it thinned out.”
“That’s a pretty rough schedule,” Nolan stated before either of the girls could start in. “How about we go hunting three nights per week and we choose the nights randomly so that the goblins won’t know when we’re coming? We also agreed to schedule time to meet with the mayor one afternoon per week so that she could continue to try and teach us.”
Arden sat in thought for a moment before nodding, “Yeah, that does sound better. We also need to help get some crops planted. Not sure how much of that will be us planting verses us protecting others while they plant but either way we need to get seeds in the ground.”
⚷
In the following weeks, the party settled into some routines. Each morning Sergent Cliff worked them hard, both during the exercise and weapons training portions. Arden and Nolan were both getting plenty of practice with their healing spells each day. But their stats had started to grow and their weapons skills flourished. The sparing with the more experienced guards even helped Nolan to raise his class abilities as well.
Hazel had begun spend her afternoons learning to make jewelry with Sidi. There was some disagreement as to how useful that was in the current situation, but Arden encouraged her to continue with it.
Nolan’s afternoons were spent at the forge. He was a journeyman blade smith back home and his skills carried over quite well. It didn’t take long for him to hit his stride as a blacksmith, and soon was able to take quite a bit of the easy work off Nicolaus’s plate.
Willow had finally met the mysterious Oscar and asked him about the flower garden. The odd alchemist took the time to teach her about each of the flowers and even asked her to keep a look out for certain ones when she was out hunting. When she told him she was a druid he brought her a magic scroll, the first the party had seen. Upon reading it Willow learned a spell simply titled [Plant Growth]. Oscar asked Willow to use the spell to help the recently replanted crops to grow more quickly.
Arden was the only one who hadn’t picked up a hobby or job so he spent his afternoons with his grandson and Malusi. Arden used healing spells on Malusi nearly every time he saw him, trying to focus the magic on the mental trauma the young man was suffering from, but he couldn’t tell if it was working or not.
Initially they did some sort of training each day but the results were pretty non-existent since they were having to work at Ewan’s level. So Arden took Ewan into a lesser populated part of town started playing various games like tag and hide-n-seek. He tried to get Malusi to accompany them but Malusi wasn’t ready for that. It was during this time, oddly, that Arden really started to see growth in his skills and attributes. Occasionally they would run into Allissa and her father and Ewan would get to play with someone near his own age for a bit while Arden and Allissa’s dad stood in awkward silence.
The team met with the mayor one afternoon a week for a meal and always brought a list of questions as the mayor tried to patiently teach them about the world they found themselves in. But it seemed each answer just spawned more questions, and they never actually made it through the list.
During one of these meetings, Arden explained to the mayor how he started seeing skill improvement when playing games with Ewan but not when trying to train with him. The mayor was unsure of why Arden would have gained anything from simply playing games with a toddler but advised him to start keeping a notebook with questions like that in it so that he could research it later should he make it to a larger town or city.
The party continued to go out night and hunt goblins. Their skills and spells continued to level as they learned more, but they weren’t finding enough goblins to raise their overall levels which was frustrating them. After some discussion within the group and then with Guard Captain Christi, the party decided to plan a multi-day hunt to the south to see if they could find more goblins.